After some more time walking, Ari grabbed her head as she realized something, she shook her head and paused. We couldn’t help but be bewildered, she stared deeply into my eyes, making me slightly shiver.
“Yami…”
“... Yes?!” I couldn’t help but be startled as she looked at me with those predatory eyes of anger. She seemed to be genuinely mad about something, although I didn’t know what…
“Yami, tell me…” She made a brief pause. “WHY DO YOU HAVE AN UNDEAD?!”
“Eh…” What do you mean why… “That’s be—”
“Because he talks is not a valid reason to bring around something that gives an aura of the dead, and literally makes people around it uncomfortable passively! Just because I notice it more doesn’t mean others won’t notice!” Eh.
“Hmm, even if I don’t like the way she is wording it, she does have a point you know…” Whaa…
“T-Then what am I supposed to do…” I nervously interjected.
“”There is nothing you can do!”” Both of them shouted in unison, making me shy away and look at the ground. I didn’t think an undead would be such a bad idea, although I did remember how undeads were notorious for being rather easy to spot…
We silently walked as Ari sulked and Jer, well… He just admired every little detail, as if he hadn’t seen the world for more than a century! Oh wait…
“Did you say undead aura?” I asked Ari, she took a step back in confusion and nodded with perplexion. I grinned. “Jer, I order you to not leak any undead aura anymore. This is absolute!” I screamed at him, perks of being a top tier summoner were the commands.
“You know, I heard you, but like… I can’t do anything about it…” He said with a bit of disappointment. Ari nodded her head as she looked at me.
“Commands don’t work like that! Just loo—” She froze as she looked at Jer. “W-Wait… it’s gone…” Jer and Ari were silent, I grinned as I claimed victory.
“I can’t make him fly, but I can instruct things that are within physical abilities of a user, so while Jer did not know how to control his aura, apparently his level was high enough to control it. If that makes sense…” Ari nodded and so did Jer. “Now thinking about it…” I muttered as I took a glance at Jer.
He shivered.
[Name: “Jermud (Jer)”
Race: Undead (Human), Summon.
LVL. 93
Title(s): [Hero] [Destroyer of Krunia] [Zirconia’s champion] [King] (5 others)...
Karma: 200 [Undead penalty | Real value hidden]
HP: 135320/130304
MP: 15398/15398
ST: 8230/7902
Luck: 200
STR: 3201
AGI: 4920
CC/CD: 10%
Classes: [Knight lvl.40.] [Shield Master lvl.40.] [Blade Master lvl.13.]
Special skills: [Hidden edge] [Impenetrable defense] [Discipline]]
I couldn’t help but blink repeatedly as I read what I was seeing. He had two classes of the master category, and even had the disciple skill! Meaning he well… had peerless discipline at whatever he set his mind on. While his stats aren’t that amazing, that hp… Did I just get myself a tank?!
More importantly, isn’t two master classes really high tier here? Not to be confused with the true Master classes, the ones that start with the word master are really special! Well, besides he does have that shiny hero title, it’s probably the real deal. I really got myself a nice summon, I couldn’t even completely change the name!
“Yami?! Yami!” Ari was shaking me.
“Haaahaa…” I had just gotten myself probably the best summon in this world.
“Stop! Stop! Your saliva is leaking!” She shook me real hard, finally bringing me back to my senses. “What’s the big deal?” She asked with slight curiosity and anticipation.
“Jer is really special… Like, a legendary item type of special…” I muttered with slight excitement as he stood there with visible confusion.
“And may I ask, what makes you think that?” His inquiry wasn’t bad.
“I saw your stats, they are passable.” I nonchalantly informed him.
Unexpectedly he kind of froze. “You know, I am well aware you are a monster, but if everyone is a monster like you, then I don’t think I should be here…” Woaa… He seemed really discouraged.
“Em, I don’t know if it’s any reassurance, but Yami is one of the only monsters I have encountered…” Ari clumsily tried to reassure Jer, in response he just quietly nodded.
“If you say so…”
I couldn’t help but be confused, was he really proud of his stats or something? Well, he was a hero after all, I just did not think people took stats to a personal level. Well, something new to learn I suppose.
“Yami, just because he is an undead doesn’t mean he doesn’t have emotions…” He nodded.
“Eh…” I really couldn’t tell what was going on. “Anyway, he does not have the undead aura you speak of anymore, so going into a town shouldn’t be that much of a problem. We just need to um... Cover him a bit…” I muttered as I saw his completely tattered armor.
“Yeah…” Ari also realized that he was obviously a walking skeleton.
“I really don’t know why you are going through such a hassle for me, even though you could’ve just killed me.” Jer spoke his true thoughts.
“Because you are rare!” Hehehe~
“You did say that… But aren’t you rarer?” That kind of hurts…
“I digress! Just because I am unique, it doesn’t mean I am a walking skeleton!” I declared the differences.
“You are right, you are just a walking demon king that has white hair and heterochromia.” I kind of paused. Everyone had just said odd-colored or things like that.
“You know what heterochromia is?” He nodded without thinking about it.
“I am a walking corpse already, and besides the information is probably unattainable at this point, but there was a book I read when I was younger, it mentioned a lot of rare things and some health conditions, and just curious life things in general. Even though your eyes are the first thing I see that the book depicted…” He said as he doubted himself, probably trying to recollect his thoughts.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“I see… I kind of wonder how old you are anyway…” I muttered trying to hide slight excitement and confusion. “Ari, is there a place called Zirconia?” My thoughts were all over the place.
“Em… If I remember correctly, it used to be the old Sorinea, and that was around eh… two-hundred years ago…” Eh…
“So that’s how long it has been…” Jer sadly murmured.
“So you are saying back in your ancient times, there was a book that had such information?” He nodded. I paused and started thinking.
While, I don’t know much about things, one thing is certain. That book was written by someone in a similar situation to me, well similar in the sense of being here now. No idea if he died or something to get here. I mean, at least now I know there are people from the game in here… I wonder if there is anyone alive at this point though… Was I the last one? No, I don’t feel that special, I probably won’t be the last one.
“Well, we should get moving, Yami let me borrow something.” I tilted my head as she went behind me and pulled, something got caught on my forehead and threw my backwards, making me almost fall to the ground.
“What are you doing?!” I panicked as I recovered my balance, however Ari did not answer my cry and instead was doing something.
“Well, that should do it.” She said from behind me with slight pride, making me turn around. Jer was covered with my cloak and Ari’s cloak. He basically had cloaks on either side, making a mantle.
“You could’ve said you just wanted a mantle…” I voiced my discontent without thinking twice about it.
I rummaged my inventory and found a tunic that I probably would’ve never worn, I did notice that I did not have many things left inside. Just a few weapons, some accessories and clothing. Although nothing was of superb quality. I handed Jer a tunic out of nowhere and took my cloak back.
“I didn’t know you had spatial storage…” He said with shock. I shrugged and pointed at the tunic on his hands, he immediately nodded and started to put it on. Albeit a bit clumsily because of the restricted armor movements.
“Ari, please don’t do that again…” She slowly nodded as I made my request. I think she kind hurt my neck a bit, although I was sure she didn’t mean any harm. She probably just had to pull up and then backwards, and it got caught. “Well, enough thinking. Let’s go to the nearest town now.”
This time there wasn’t a weird atmosphere as we absentmindedly walked down the road. It was surprisingly empty, well, considering the road also led to the capital. I mean, I had no idea what day it was. But I would’ve assumed there would be some carriages at least passing by, now that I thought about it, there were no carriages even when we first were going to the temple. Weird.
“Yami, you seem to unusually be thinking a lot right now…” Hey!
“There is no carriages on our way there, nor when we first came to the dungeon, that’s all…”
“Oh that? Well, there are specific trade routes that go in and out of the capital, so carriages can only take those, these roads are for nobility carriages and nothing more, maybe horse riding as well.” Oh.
“I see, well I guess there is nothing to worry about.” Although not like there was anything to worry about to begin with, other than being a little bit skeptic about the situation, but that will no longer be necessary.
* * *
We uneventfully continued walking without a hitch, before I realized I could see some walls at the distance. The walls weren’t eye-burningly white, but they were made out of stacked rock, I could observe that they were made with care and smoothened out to portray a solid and sturdy wall.
Jer also seemed awfully curious about things. As he stared at the walls, I wonder how would he see the capital? Would he burn to death from too much white? Things to know and research…
Without saying anything we continued walking to the gates, surprisingly they were failry wide, allowing to pass two carriages side by side, although if it was meant to be a more um. “Private” route, I kind of wondered why they were that big.
Without leaving me time to think, we stood before the gates. I looked at the entrance arch that overarched the insides of the gate. The rock seemed old yet solid. The gates were made out of wood and had a door, we couldn’t see the inside of the city. However, there was something weird. There were no guards.
Without thinking twice about it, I knocked on the embedded wooden-door, there was no response. I couldn’t help but take a step back in confusion, Ari seemed equally as confused. Jer simply did not know what was going on so he decided to stay quiet.
“Is anyone there?” Ari slightly raised her voice as she asked. There was still no reply, we couldn’t help but become even more confused, I mean, it was a town gate, that had no people nor guards. That’s weird, isn’t it?
After a few seconds of staring into each other. I heard some locks be removed from behind the door, and slowly open. There was a brigade of knights standing there, although they did not have their weapons out so at least we didn’t have to worry about that.
“Oh, what do we have here?” A knight asked with a bit of surprise as he observed us. He was dressed in the same silvery armor all of them had, but he also had a blue band with the kingdom’s logo travelling across his chest. Needless to say he was probably important.
He paused in awkwardness as all we did was stare at him. “Were all of you trying to get into the city?” We nodded. “Alright, I will need some type of registration. Sorry in advance, we all had an emergency and had to leave…” He clumsily scratched his helmet, making a bad metal scratching sound.
I just showed my obsidian tag that had my fake name on it, he paused. “You see, we just came back from our quest and we lost quite a bit of things. Specially the registrations.” I handed him the tag so that he could closely examine it.
He looked at it with a discerning eye, he even smelled it and checked it down to the last detail. Eventually he sighed. “Looks like it’s real, Miss Dark Shadow, you and your party are welcome in the city of Niyer, north of the Capital city of Tortul.” How awe inspiring. “But please get the registrations for your friends as soon as you can, it can cause trouble.” He sincerely informed me as he turned around and gave commands to his I assume battalion.
They all diverged to the sides of the door, I assume to get atop the walls. “Please, come in.” The knight leader gestured us to pass, not before making eye contact with Jer, which made him shiver a bit. I guess he was intimidating, I did not realize but he was almost twice as tall as me. Needless to say he was a towering figure of death, mhm!
Once we passed the door, the knight captain did a formal salute and started to completely open the wooden gate by spinning a wheel. We turned and faced the city, it seemed kind of like the capital; all pavimented with rock and it had a bunch of businesses. We were standing in a plaza, it probably wasn’t the main one, but it had inns and a guild, as well as an armory! Well, rather, it was a shop that had a sword and shield with a helmet as a symbol.
“So, where are we going now?” Ari asked with a bit of uneasiness.
“To the guild!” Surprisingly no one really looked much at Jer.
“Are you okay? You are bringing him!” He pointed at Jer. “You are going to bring that to adventurers?!” Eh.
“That’s not very nice of you…”
“Well, if we finish our quest there is no risk to the quest failure part, and we might be able to make him an adventurer as well.” Yay.
“That’s true, but—”
“But nothing. Let’s go!” Ari sulked as she followed me, Jer was just quiet as he observed everything.
We entered the doorless guild, some eyes glued on us, mostly on Jer, who was incredibly tall. New warrior I suppose, thankfully no drunk person stood up to get into a fight. We arrived at the receptionist who had a friendly and warm smile.
“What may I do for you girl?” I took a step back seeing she was nowhere near as bad as the last one. She tilted her head with a bit of confusion but did not say anything.
“I was wondering if we could turn in quests from other adventurer branches…” I muttered, it might’ve been common sense and I didn’t know about it, last thing I wanted was the entire guild teasing me.
“Well, you can. Although it’s fairly uncommon…” She said with a bit of confusion. “All you need is the guild card and some type of subjugation proof.”
“Then please…” I handed her my guild card and looked at Jer. “Can I have that sword you were using before the replacement?”
“I dropped it…” Oh…
I turned back to the receptionist. “Would loot count?” She nodded.
“I mean, if we can trace the origin of it using a stone, I suppose…”
I turned back to Jer. “Hand the sword over.” He nodded and gave it to me. It was in the scabbard so it didn’t feel that bad.
“Well, I will place the sword here, although I would suggest not touching it…” I said as I absentmindedly set it atop of the counter. The receptionist nodded with a bit of confusion and started to use some magic on the card.
Her eyes momentarily widened and she handed me back the card. “I will need you to go speak to the guild master, also, take the sword with you.” I nodded seeing she turned serious and took the sword back.
She left the counter and escorted us upstairs, some adventurers were curious about what happened. Others were chatting about how we were going to get banned from being adventurers for stealing or something. I had no idea. Without thinking too much about it we arrived at the guild master’s office.
The receptionist approached the door.
“Come in.” I heard a voice from inside before she could even knock on it. She nodded at us and left. With a bit of confusion we stood before the door and opened it.
The room was completely dark, and all I could see was a dimly lit couch, it was kind of unsettling. We all looked at each other and entered, sitting on the couch with a bit of confusion.
“So, I heard your tales…” It was an ominous voice and we could hear it in the entirety of the room. “What brings you to my guild? But more importantly, why would you bring an undead here?” I felt a slight caress on my neck.